This Weekend, Get Away from the Washington Theatrics

We have been so focused on, almost mesmerized by the goings-on in our nation’s capital that it might not be a bad idea to—for a moment—move our eyes and attention way southward, past the Gulf of Mexico, past the Caribbean, across the Cordillera de los Andes, towards a little country straddling the Andes and right smack on the Equator.

You got it, that little country is Ecuador. A country that is not without its Washington D.C. moments and theater, but at least a country that you can get away from it all within hours; where within a radius of 100 miles from its capital, Quito, one can find oneself in a different world—actually in three different worlds.

You see, traveling through Ecuador, the size of Colorado, is like traversing three uniquely distinct and infinitely varied ecological and topographical regions, and sometimes like traveling back in time. I rediscovered this during a recent trip to my native country.

First, Ecuador boasts the warm and humid Pacific coast region, with some of the most gorgeous, unpopulated beaches; its lush banana, cacao and sugar cane plantations along with shrimp “farms” and its beautiful regional capital of Guayaquil with 3.5 million inhabitants. The population in Ecuador’s “Costa,” “los costeños,” is a truly delightful cultural and ethnic melting pot—a proud people always in a friendly rivalry with their neighbors in the Sierra, “los serranos.”

The Sierra, the high Andes mountains with its avenue of snowcapped, yet steaming and rumbling active volcanoes, topped by the majestic, 20,000+ feet Chimborazo is Ecuador’s amazingly fertile and productive breadbasket with its haciendas and colorful Indian markets and artesanías; its mysterious, deep lakes and melted snow- and rain-flushed rivers and waterfalls crashing down thousands of feet towards the Pacific Ocean on one side and towards the Amazon river on the other, all crowned by the Spanish-colonial capital of Quito. A splendid, historical city, a “world cultural heritage city,” Quito is settled in a Cordillera valley “merely” 9,000 feet high and at “la mitad del mundo,” the center of the earth. A significant number of Sierra residents are direct descendants of the Incas, many still speaking the Inca Quichua language. Another large part of serranos are direct descendants of the Spanish Conquistadores and of subsequent Spanish and Old World settlers.

Finally, at the East side of the Andes, or “Oriente,” we find the most amazing region in Ecuador—perhaps in the world—Ecuador’s Amazon rain forest. A region that has been referred to as the most bio-diverse place on earth, a “crucial part of the planet’s lungs,” and as the world’s “richest biological incubator.”

One such place is the Yasuní National Park, deep in Ecuador’s rain forest, a pristine, 4,000-square-mile rainforest wilderness of incredible biodiversity and the ancestral land to two of the most isolated and “uncontacted” indigenous tribes. An area containing 150 amphibian species, 121 species of reptiles and 550 species of birds. A region where, in a two-square-mile area, one finds 655 species of trees—more than the United States and Canada combined—along with some of the most promising medicinal plants and animal toxins. I have written about this region here.

El Oriente is where the harpy eagle soars far above the caiman and the jaguar, and where the feared piranhas swim alongside the equally dreaded anaconda. It is also the region where we find the Huaorani (referred pejoratively as Aucas), Achuar and Shuar (referred pejoratively as Jívaros) indigenous groups—many negatively affected, even endangered by “civilization.”

When one adds such a diversity in cultures, traditions and ethnicities to Ecuador’s unparalleled natural beauty, one gets a glimpse of the greatness of a small country—the size of Colorado.

However, we are not finished yet. Ecuador boasts a fourth region that is just as distinct and diverse as the other three: the amazing and historical Galápagos Islands, 525 miles off Ecuador’s coast and also smack on the equator—just think evolution, natural selection, Darwin, Galápagos tortoises and blue-footed boobies, and you’ll get the idea.

And I haven’t even talked yet about a subject very close to my heart, or stomach: Ecuador’s amazingly varied and delicious cuisine. Imagine the results of throwing an incredible abundance and variety of animal and plant resources, staples and ingredients, some very exotic, into a cooking pot of so many cultures, ethnicities and traditions—Inca, Old World, New World, indigenous, etc. The results are exquisite ceviches (seafood marinated in limejuice), caldos and locros (delicious soups), hornados (roasted pork), fritadas, empanadas, humitas, llapingachos, encebollados, secos de chivo, etc., etc. (I have stopped translating as my keyboard is getting wet), not to mention the innumerable dishes prepared from an abundance and great variety of bananas and plantains.

Well, you get the idea. Look away from Washington this weekend and go to your nearest South American restaurant—preferably authentic Ecuadorean—and indulge in a shrimp ceviche followed by some llapingachos montados with plenty of ají and just imagine that you are sitting at an outdoor Quito restaurant enjoying a lovely, sunny, 75-degree day and are looking at two or three magnificent snow-capped mountains that you can almost touch. And don’t forget to have a good chicha to wash it all down.

¡Buen Provecho!